WA0290 Seattle NOW

The Seattle Chapter of the National Organization for Women was founded in 1970. In 1972 our president, Elaine Day Latourell said, “NOW is dedicated to working within the system and when that doesn’t work, to raising hell”. For 42 years Seattle NOW has not strayed from the commitment made by our founding mothers to pushing buttons, breaking barriers and opening doors for women and girls. We have held public forums, lobbied our government officials, marched, written letters and spoken out on issues such as abortion, “Jane’s House”, Social Security, breast cancer, body image, welfare reform, education, AIDS and women, the effects of advertising on women, self-defense, child-care, worker’s rights, and racism/white privilege. We toured schools to educate about tactics to avoid the oppression of advertising. We successfully lobbied the Seattle School District to provide equal time to peace groups and military recruiters in the high schools and to forbid the establishment of JR. ROTC in Seattle Schools. We and many community allies worked hard over many years, to pass I-120 protecting reproductive freedom and Referendum 74 legalizing gay/lesbian marriage. In 2009 we convinced Amazon.com to stop marketing Rapelay an interactive video game centered on raping women and young girls and to stop marketing other numerous violent, women-hating video games. To date they have removed many of these games from their American and European web sites. Contact us at the link below to find out how you can get involved.